


The War Inside

by stardropdream



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pacific Rim Fusion, Drift Compatibility, M/M, Mental Health Issues, The Drift (Pacific Rim)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-11
Updated: 2017-06-11
Packaged: 2018-11-13 00:26:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11173161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stardropdream/pseuds/stardropdream
Summary: Do you feel it?Victor doesn’t ask, but it shines in his eyes, and all Yuuri can think is,yes, yes, yes—When the world is at war with the kaiju, Yuuri was content to stay behind the scenes. But perhaps he should have known that Victor would find him.





	The War Inside

**Author's Note:**

> A little while ago on my tumblr I asked for AU prompts, and someone asked for a Pacific Rim fusion. So this is basically just a long way to get these two being connected in the drift. Apologies for any discrepancies from the movie - it's been a few years since I've watched it.

**i.**  
It’s about three years into the fight against the kaiju that Yuuri quits training as a Jaeger pilot. 

It isn’t because he’s injured – he’s fine. It isn’t because he’s scared, either – not really. Not scared of the kaiju, at least. 

The first test with the drift fizzles still in the back of Yuuri’s mind. He feels agitated, unsteadied. They haven’t found a pilot he’s compatible with; Celestino had still been looking at the time. This was just a test of equipment, to see how Yuuri’s mind adapts to the opening of his consciousness, to the tendrils of his mind reaching for another—

And so Yuuri quits. 

 

 **ii.**  
Celestino protests loudly, tries to goad Yuuri back into it, but Yuuri – who was only ever a mediocre stand-in, a wannabe who could never really be what a proper Jaeger needs – doesn’t listen. 

There isn’t much that Celestino can say that would be persuasive enough for Yuuri to keep going. 

He isn’t cut out for this – not bombastic enough, not eye-catching enough to foster any sort of satisfactory sponsorship. Worse, he’s hardly that good of a pilot, either – certainly not a good fighter. His years of training as a dancer gave him some decent movement when piloting, certainly allowed him to dodge easily. But what good is a Jaeger pilot that can only ever dodge? 

He takes down the posters of Victor Nikiforov from his walls and packs them away, vacates his spot in the barracks and finishes his studying to be an engineer instead. 

He can’t pilot the Jaegers, can’t get past the roadblock of the two-pilot system (nobody he’s trained with is truly drift-compatible, nobody can get close enough to stomach Yuuri’s mind; or, rather, Yuuri can’t stand someone getting into the small corners of his thoughts), but he can at least help to build them, to help keep them together as the kaiju just get bigger and bigger. 

He’s not a good engineer by any means, but he understands Jaegers. He understands the importance of this fight. That, at least, is something he can do. 

It’s better this way. He was always a fool to think he could ever be as good a pilot as someone like Victor. 

 

 **iii.**  
Hasetsu, despite its position so close to the sea, was never a major target for the kaiju attacks. It’s a sleepy little town that perhaps isn’t so sleepy anymore – more insomniac, waiting for the day when the kaiju do decide to open near them. Still, it was a fishing village and then an onsen destination. But tourism to coastal towns has been down ever since the kaiju first started attacking consistently. Yuuri can’t predict how much longer his family’s onsen will last. 

Yuuri calls it masochism now, that as a young kid – after the outbreak with the first kaiju – he would watch all the footage he could, get every clip he could get his hands on. Watching again and again as kaiju ripped open cities, slammed water into the coastlines, wiping away towns and lives with the sweep of a tail or the slam of an open maw. 

He’d always end up the same: curled up in a ball under the covers, every little creak of an old inn and the chirp of night crickets suddenly going silent leaving him sure that a kaiju was about to strike. He sobbed himself to sleep most nights.

 

 **iv.**  
But still Yuuri would watch the footage.

 

 **v.**  
Still he would look for any sign of Victor. 

Victor, the youngest pilot to ever successfully operate a Jaeger, trained under the steady eye of Yakov, who was by all means too old to be a Jaeger pilot but was, reportedly, the only one close enough to drift compatible with Victor. They made the strangest team and it was universally agreed that despite Yakov’s experience as a pilot, it was Victor who carried the Jaeger – made piloting the Jaeger look easy, beautiful and artful and flawless. Like it was an artform and not a form of warfare. 

It was remarkable, the world said, what Victor could do. How perfect the Jaeger moved – and all this, achieved with someone he was only eighty-five percent compatible with. Imagine, the sponsored news footage would proclaim on screen or through the news anchors, imagine what he could do if he had someone perfectly compatible with him. 

Watching that footage and seeing Victor in the footage disembarking his Jaeger almost made the crippling, painful certainty that Yuuri was about to die by kaiju worth it. Victor was breathtaking, beautiful – made it look easy, made it look _essential._

Yuuri was a fool to ever think he could be like that, too. To ever think he could pilot a Jaeger alongside Victor someday. 

 

 **vi.**  
There are rumors that Victor is coming to the complex to train new pilots, to test out the new Jaegers they’re developing. Yuuri listens but dismisses the rumors. There’s no way that Victor would come here. And even if he did, it isn’t as if Victor would see him, back here in the engineering room.

 

 **vii.**  
Naturally, or perhaps in just the continuous string of Yuuri’s bad luck, it would just so happen that Yuuri would look up from computing new code for the new Jaeger class in development – and Victor Nikiforov would be right there. 

Just standing there, like a regular person. 

Yuuri yelps, startles straight out of his skin. Victor hovers over his shoulder, peering down at the code that must be, likely, incomprehensive to him. 

Yuuri wonders if it’s actually possible to just spontaneously combust due to embarrassment. His heart is pressed deep into his throat, refusing to dislodge. 

“What—” Yuuri squawks out, recoiling. His rolling chair swivels across the floor and he rams hard into the opposite control panel. He doesn’t hit any buttons at least but his side smarts from the sudden assault of skin against metal. “Victor?” 

Victor doesn’t startle at the sudden movement and noise.

“Yes!” he chirps out in response. “I’m looking for—”

But when Victor slant his eyes away from the screen and towards Yuuri—

—the world stops. 

 

 **viii.**  
They stare at one another. Time slows and then stops. Yuuri is sure that he forgets to breathe. He isn’t anything at all, not a human, not living, nothing—

Seeing Victor up close, like this, is completely different from the grainy footage, the sponsorship posters and merchandise. 

Victor looks thunderstruck, staring into his eyes. 

Yuuri knows, logically, that the world continues on around them. He couldn’t care less that it does.

 

 **ix.**  
Victor blinks at him, seems to stare at him for the longest moment and Yuuri is sure that he’s dying, that he’s dead, that this can’t possibly be happening—

And then Victor smiles – that disarming, charming smile that makes Yuuri feel just the slightest bit too weak. 

“Wow,” he whispers, connected to nothing, and the world around them shatters back into place. Yuuri is still alone crunching away at a stubborn code. Victor, _the_ Victor, is right here in front of him and smiling at him. 

“Um,” Yuuri whispers, his heart squeezing in his chest, his lungs devoid of breath. 

Victor smiles more at him, bright and painfully beautiful. He says, “I think I might have gotten turned around. Can you tell me where the barracks are?” 

Yuuri isn’t sure how to react, isn’t sure what to do. 

“What’s your name?” Victor asks in a rush, his voice higher and more breathless than a moment before, lurching forward to plant his hand on Yuuri’s chair, looking down at him. “Who are you?” 

_Nobody,_ is Yuuri’s default. Instead, he shakes his head and stammers out, “Y— Yuuri Katsuki.” 

“Yuuri,” Victor answers, and Yuuri stops breathing, lets the sound of Victor Nikiforov saying his name wash over his skin, into his bloodstream, weaving into his nerve-endings, into his very cellular being. 

Up close his eyes are that startling blue Yuuri always squinted at through the poor home-video footage of kaiju attacks, or stared up at the posters printed in high-res for the publicity. 

“Victor,” Yuuri answers, trying the name out, as if he hasn’t said it for years, as if he hasn’t thought it for longer. His mouth feels dry, fumbling around the sharp cut of Victor’s name, softening on the last syllable. 

They continue to stare at each other. Neither moves. Neither breathes. Neither speaks. 

 

 **x.**  
Finally, Victor asks, “Do you feel it?”

Yuuri stares at him. He can’t answer. 

 

 **xi.**  
Victor says, quieter now, when it’s clear that Yuuri isn’t going to respond: “That code looks complicated.” 

“It is,” Yuuri manages to waffle out and it’s so painfully, brutally insufficient. What he wants to say is, _Why are you here? How are you here?_ What he wants to say is, _I’ve always wanted to meet you._ What he wants to say is, _Your eyes are so beautiful._

Instead, he just stares – mute and stupid. Victor keeps smiling at him for a moment, sunny, although it dims slightly as he considers Yuuri. To be under such scrutiny and study leaves Yuuri sweating. He must look disgusting. 

“Anyway,” Yuuri squeaks out, standing abruptly and nearly slamming his knee against his desk. “The barracks! They’re – they’re this way—”

 

 **xii.**  
When Yuuri is on break, he watches Victor training the would-be Jaeger pilots, searching for the one who will be drift compatible with him. It’s a long, arduous process. Yakov is tired, broken leg and forced into retirement after one too many kaiju fights. He hovers at the corners of the fighting to observe, scowling all the while and rolling his eyes when Victor calls a chipper goading towards his coach and partner. 

Yakov is tired and Victor is partnerless. But Jaeger pilots are still needed, kaiju still appearing what seems like every day but can’t really be with that much frequency. The wall is being built more and more every day only to be destroyed. Victor, as one of the best pilots, needs a new partner – and fast. Or they’re all doomed. 

At least, that’s how Yuuri observes it. The media isn’t presenting it quite so dire. Not yet, at least. It’s more of a fun opportunity – a contest. Who will be the best pilot in the world’s new partner? Who can possibly match up to him? Who could possibly keep up? Other pilot pairings are scrambling at the chance to prove themselves in Victor’s absence, ready to prove themselves stronger than the Victor-Yakov team up. 

Yuuri keeps tucked into the shadows, watching Victor spar with recruits – dismisses them all one by one. Celestino watches the proceedings, arms crossed with a frown and murmuring quietly to Yakov, who looks just as cranky and frustrated as the video footage always makes him seem. 

After each sparring match, Victor scans the crowd – searching. He never seems to find what he’s looking for. 

 

 **xiii.**  
Once, Celestino turns his head and catches Yuuri’s eye, sharp as a hawk. Yuuri feels his heart seize up and he quickly leaves before Celestino can say anything, before Victor can catch his eye and – feel nothing, looking at Yuuri. Who would ever feel anything, or see anything worthwhile, looking at Yuuri? 

He lets the door shut behind him. 

 

 **xiv.**  
It’s been a long day. Yuuri rubs his eyes and stretches a little until he feels the pop in his spine. But when he turns away from the control panel, after a long string of imputing and improving code, he nearly crashes into Victor. 

“Oh,” Yuuri gasps out, startling himself. He feels suddenly off-kilter, like a newborn fawn who hasn’t yet learned to master his legs. It’s a disarming experience, to be stuck under Victor’s long, steady stare. 

Victor stares at him. 

Yuuri fumbles. “Um, are you looking for—”

But Victor shakes his head and Yuuri cuts himself off abruptly. They stand there in a strange silence until Victor finally inhales and says, “Spar with me.” 

Yuuri startles and is already on the verge of denying the request, his entire body seizing up with fear, with surety of failure.

But Victor says, quieter now, “Please.”

Not a command, but a request. A plea. 

And how could Yuuri ever say no to that?

“Okay,” Yuuri whispers, and watches the way Victor’s entire face blooms – a warm smile that touches his eyes. He’s never seen a look like that. The old footage of the kaiju attacks were always so serious, Victor so focused and determined, his smiles more practiced eased, or confident. A smirk on a poster – a pilot in control and ready to tackle the world without breaking a sweat. 

Here, he almost looks sweet. His eyes are soft, looking at Yuuri. Yuuri feels his heartbeat thunder. 

 

 **xv.**  
Sparring with Victor is like dancing, Yuuri thinks distantly – moving into one another’s space and drifting away, that spark of connection when Victor pivots and slings his arm out, only for Yuuri to block it with his wrist. The swing and slide, Yuuri twisting to send up a high kick that Victor ducks and side-steps. They move around each other, small, fitful circles and it’s like an age-old routine they’ve been practicing together for weeks, months, years – where Yuuri moves, Victor is there to meet him, where Victor turns, Yuuri is drifting into his orbit. They circle one another, twist, make a connection with fist or kick or the sweat-slick slide of forearm against forearm. 

By the end of it, Yuuri is panting, his hair slick-stuck to his forehead, his glasses slipping down his nose and Victor’s eyes are like bright, blinding, beautifully blue fire. An ignition – rocket fuel, or something equally as unstoppable – staring straight at Yuuri as if they’ll both incinerate. Yuuri has his hand clasped around Victor’s fist, stopped before it could make a connection to his shoulder. Victor’s fist is powerful in his hold, but not dangerous – never fearing that Victor will harm him. That Victor is only reaching out to him, instead. That Victor is meeting him here on the battlefield only to engage, not destroy. 

“Wow,” Victor whispers, staring straight at Yuuri and Yuuri feels it spark down his spine, curl into his lungs, as if he were the one to speak it – as if those words would never dislodge again. 

 

 **xvi.**  
_Do you feel it?_ Victor doesn’t ask, but it shines in his eyes, and all Yuuri can think is, _yes, yes, yes—_

 

 **xvii.**  
“Yuuri, don’t you want to try it out?” Victor asks, his expression warm and soft and comforting and far too understanding. 

Yuuri blushes and shakes his head, looking away. 

“I can’t,” he says faintly. 

“Nonsense!” Victor bubbles out happily. His hands close around the swivel chair Yuuri sits in and tugs him way from the code he’s trying to battle into submission. He turns Yuuri in his chair so they’re looking at each other. Victor ducks down so they meet eye to eye, so that they are leveled with one another. 

Yuuri feels himself blushing, the red creeping up his neck and settling at his ears.

Victor says, quieter now, with promise, “I’ve seen the way you fight. You were training to be a pilot once, weren’t you?” 

“No one was compatible with me,” Yuuri says – a half-truth, at least, but simpler than the truth. There’s a phantom clawing at his back, whispering every doubt, every shortcoming, every critical failure in the back of Yuuri’s mind. How could he wish that on someone else?

“Well,” Victor says, his smile large and dimpling and heartbreakingly beautiful. “Now someone is.”

“We don’t know that,” Yuuri protests.

Victor leans in closer, his mouth a hair’s breadth from Yuuri’s. Yuuri’s breath hitches and his body hums to life, having Victor so close in his space. He wants to reel back, wants to fold into himself. Instead, he finds himself leaning forward, finds himself wanting to meet him. 

Quietly, Victor whispers, “Let’s find out, then.” 

 

 **xviii.**  
He hasn’t worn the suit in so long. They hook him up to the apparatus, Victor beside him. He can feel the beginning of the tendrils of his mind spooling outwards, seeking. It’s unnerving, it’s frightening. 

He rattles in a sharp breath, tries to breathe out calmly. This will be it. Victor will see what a waste of time this is, Victor will see—

Victor will see _everything._

The Jaeger whirls to life around them. Yuuri’s mind races away from him. 

 

 **xix.**  
“He’s chasing the rabbit!” the static voice pops in Yuuri’s ear but he can’t hear it, staring off into the expansive, suffocating darkness. He’s never felt this before. He doesn’t know what this is. 

Or, he knows, and he doesn’t want to believe it – the way he’s falling backwards, tumbling down into darkness. No one should have to see this, least of all Victor. This is—

 

 **xx.**  
He thinks he hears Victor calling out to him, but it’s all fading away. He stares straight ahead of himself, aware of the weight of his suit and the hitching of his breath. At least until it all slips away and he feels smaller, shorter. He isn’t in the Jaeger. He isn’t in the Jaeger compound, either. He isn’t in Hasetsu, either. He isn’t anywhere. No, he’s—

He’s left home, he’s younger. Sixteen and alone for the first time. 

That shriek in the distance, the buildings collapsing—

A kaiju, the first one Yuuri’s ever seen in person—

He runs, unable to breathe, unable to think to even scream – taking too much work, too much energy – just needing to escape, just needing to get away, just needing to survive—

A bus goes flying above his head and crashes into a storefront a block ahead of him and Yuuri swerves, swivels, tries to duck away into a side alley—

His breath ringing hard in his ears, his heart pounding so fast he’s sure it’s going to burst—

A building collapsing around him and then—

The Jaeger, the one he knows so well – piloted, he knows, by a young Victor, and Yakov – the duo that inspired Yuuri to leave home in the first place, to find himself in this damned city alone and chased down by a kaiju and yet—

He scrambles over rubble, ducks behind a makeshift shelter, unsure what to do, watches with baited breath as the Jaeger fights the kaiju. The battles have always mesmerized him but here, they only fill him with fear. He is one tiny little person. He is no one. He is nothing. He is going to die here. 

He is going to die here, alone. No one will remember him. No one will care. He is—

 

 **xxi.**  
No one will mourn for him. No one will ever know what really happened to him.

 

 **xxii.**  
He collapses into himself, his hands clenching into his hair. He’s so scared, he’s so sure he’s going to die, he’s going to die right here, like this, and—

“Yuuri?” a voice whispers, soft and gentle and lilting, sounding at once far away and too close – scared, maybe, yes scared for him – “Yuuri, this isn’t real.”

The words slice through him, are at once abstraction and dedication. He doesn’t know who the source is, where the source is. Doesn’t even think to listen to what the words mean. Only sinks into himself, fingers clenching against his face, his heart galloping in fear. He is going to die here. He is going to die here—

Yuuri shakes his head, fingers digging hard into his scalp. He’s going to die here. This is it for him. This is it. 

Victor – older, too old, not twenty like he’s supposed to be but older—

Not how old he’s supposed to be, but absolutely Victor – kneels in front of him, cups his cheeks. His thumbs fan out, brushing away the tears. The touch is stabilizing. It’s real. Yuuri’s mind snaps and folds into itself, focuses and unfocuses. He is here and he is going to die. No, Victor is here but Victor is down the street fighting a kaiju, younger. No. No, he’s—

 

 **xxiii.**  
In the distance, Yakov and Victor wrestle the kaiju into submission, destroy it and the city around them. 

 

 **xxiv.**  
No, that’s not right. Victor is—

“Yuuri,” Victor whispers, kneeling in front of him. 

 

 **xxv.**  
“Yuuri,” Victor whispers, eyes so impossibly blue. “I’m here. This isn’t real. This is just a memory.”

Yuuri’s breath rattles in his chest, staring wide-eyed at Victor. He’s going to die here. A building collapses. This is it. He’s—

“Stay with me,” Victor tells him, and it is a memory and he shouldn’t be able to feel anything but he feels the shadow of touch as Victor cups his cheeks, thumbs at his cheekbones. Victor stares at him, steady and calm, but his hands shaking. “Yuuri,” he whispers. “Come back.” 

Yuuri stares at him. 

 

 **xxvi.**  
Chasing the rabbit—

Falling backwards into memories, the side-effect of the drift. No, isn’t this what he wanted to avoid? Isn’t this what he didn’t want anyone to see? This ugliness, this pain, this darkness? No, isn’t this—

He feels as if he’s going to be swallowed alive. This pain, this fear. This inadequacy – flashes of memories: if only he’d been stronger, if only he’d been better. No, no, if he’s—

“Yuuri,” Victor whispers, and Yuuri finds himself centering. The touch on his cheeks _isn’t_ real either, but it feels more real, feels more present. Victor’s mind is wide open, inviting him in. He can’t cross that threshold. But—

“Victor,” he croaks out and suddenly the world snaps back into focus – in the Jaeger cockpit, Victor stabilized beside him. He blinks once, twice, his entire body shuddering – his mind locking down, locking all those memories away. Victor can’t see. Victor can’t see—

 

 **xxvii.**  
The bond between them blooms open, a rush of blue and purple and soft light and Victor in the cockpit looks over at him, and Victor in Yuuri’s mind – their mind, his mind – looks at him as well. 

“Follow me,” Victor prompts, holding out his hand, and Yuuri takes it – falls into Victor’s mind. At once the memories open up to him, one right after the other, like a slow-blooming rose. He feels it all, an extension of himself, familiar and lovely and at once unfamiliar and new. Victor’s memories – no, his own memories—

“Oh,” Yuuri whispers, or thinks, or says aloud he doesn’t know – and grasps Victor’s hand, tumbles backwards so that they’re falling. Victor’s memories ripple and flow around them.

“Can I see yours?” Victor asks, and he doesn’t press, even as the memories shimmer and shift, flashes of faces that Yuuri knew as a child, following Makkachin through the inn – no, not Makkachin, Makkachin is Victor’s dog, this is Vicchan before he left, before he, him, and—

“I’m sorry,” Yuuri says as preamble as they descend into Yuuri’s mind, his memories. Slashes of grey and black and fear, watching the footage of the kaiju – the burst of longing and desire and fear and need at Victor emerging from the Jaeger, young and bright and still fighting—

Yuuri trying to mimic him and failing—

“Yuuri,” Victor says, and Yuuri snaps his eyes open – or his mind snaps its mind wider – and Victor is in front of him, in his piloting suit, his eyes warm as he reaches for Yuuri and pulls him to him—

They splash down through their memories—

And it’s somehow comforting. It’s overwhelming, the rush of these memories, his or Victor’s or mine or _ours_ and—

And it’s like being held safe again, it’s like finding what was always missing—

“I’m here,” Victor or Yuuri or both of them say – and then Yuuri tips up and catches Victor’s mouth with his. 

 

 **xxviii.**  
The next time, Yuuri breathes out slowly and lets his mind unfold just as slow – lets Victor stroll through it, uncover every little dark shadow and corner of Yuuri’s mind, until he is barren and Victor knows everything.

Once they disengage from the drift and they are themselves, wholly and separately, again – Victor turns and smiles at him, still so sweet and still so gentle as before.

“Yuuri,” he whispers, and Yuuri has seen inside of Victor’s mind, has seen the way Victor looks at him in turn, knows exactly what Victor means when he says his name like that—

Yuuri’s heart swells. He smiles back, disbelieving and knowing that Victor knows he is disbelieving. 

 

 **xxix.**  
The kaiju in the distance screams, water cascading off its body.

“Let’s go,” Victor or Yuuri or both of them think, it doesn’t matter. The drift curls between them, guiding them, connecting them. 

When they move, they move together.


End file.
